On the northern flank of the British position, where the 5th Division, about Fort Concepcion, and the 6th Division in front of San Pedro, watched Reynier’s corps across the steep ravine of the Dos Casas, nothing of importance happened throughout the day. The opposing forces were almost equal, each about 10,000 strong, and Reynier had been ordered to make no more than ‘a general demonstration all along his line, to support the attack of the main army.’ It was true that he was also directed to make a parallel movement along the river, if Wellington should draw in towards Fuentes de Oñoro the troops immediately opposed to him[432]. But this was never done: Wellington kept the 5th and 6th Divisions almost in their original positions throughout the day. A regiment from the latter (the 53rd)[433] was moved to the edge of the plateau at the north end of Fuentes village, to keep back any attempt to turn the place on that side—but such an attempt was not made, and the rest of the division kept its original place opposite Reynier. The ‘demonstration’ which that general had been ordered to make was duly carried out, but amounted to nothing more than the sending of the 31st Léger and two guns from Heudelet’s division to skirmish, at the edge of the ravine, with the light troops of the 5th Division on the other side[434]. Some more of the French regiments deployed, but never came within gunshot. The figures of the losses on the two sides show how little serious was the engagement: the 31st Léger lost 4 officers and 48 men killed or wounded; the light companies of the British 3/1st, 1/9th, 2/30th, and 2/44th, and of the Portuguese 8th Caçadores lost 27 men. The 6th Division had no losses at all in its British brigades, and only four men in the 12th Portuguese line. Reynier has been blamed by some French critics for not pushing forward a pronounced attack, but it is hard to see how he could have done more. He was ordered to demonstrate only, not to commit himself to a real action, unless the British should withdraw from his front and go towards Fuentes. And as Wellington kept 10,000 men in his front all day, covered by a difficult ravine, he would only have lost lives, and gained nothing, by engaging. The two divisions opposite him were numerically as strong as himself, and lay in a most formidable position. An attack would have been beaten off, while if he had manœuvred towards Fuentes to join Drouet, the 5th Division could have crossed the ravine and taken him in the rear. Such a movement would also have exposed the convoy intended for Almeida, which lay at Gallegos, to Reynier’s left rear.
Thus ended the battle of Fuentes de Oñoro: the fight, which had been hot and well contested down to two o’clock, dying down into a mere skirmishing between outposts before dusk. The total losses of the 5th had been, on the part of the Allies, 1,452 officers and men, of whom 192 were killed, 958 wounded, and 255 taken prisoners. That of the French was 2,192, of whom 267 were killed, 1,878 wounded, and 47 prisoners. On both sides the larger half of the casualties was incurred in the street fighting that raged up and down the village of Fuentes for so many hours; as has been already explained, the Allies lost here 800 men, the French about 1,300. The remaining losses among Wellington’s men are mainly accounted for by the hustling of the 7th Division about Pozo Bello, which cost 237 men, by the cutting up of the light troops of the Guards brigade, where about 100 casualties took place, and by the hard fighting of the cavalry during the early part of the day, while they were covering the retreat of the Light and 7th Divisions, in which they lost 160 men. On the other side the French, besides their casualties in Fuentes village, had 359 officers and men of their cavalry put out of action, and some 400 of Marchand’s and Mermet’s infantry killed or hurt, partly in the storming of Pozo Bello, but mainly in the cannonade in the afternoon, while they were standing in column facing Wellington’s second position, which they were never allowed to attack[435]. Of the 255 prisoners taken from the Allies, nearly 100 were lost about Pozo Bello by the 7th Division, and 94 belonged to the two companies of the 79th captured in Fuentes de Oñoro during Ferey’s first attack. Undoubtedly the most surprising item in the statistics of the day is the small loss incurred by the Light Division during its retreat to the British lines, wherein, though beset by 3,000 cavalry and a battery of horse artillery, it counted only 67 casualties[436]. But steady infantry, such as the Light Division, was invulnerable even to the most daring horsemen, so long as it preserved its formation in square.
On the morning after the battle, dawn showed the two armies still holding their positions of the preceding night. Masséna had not drawn back, and the line of his pickets was still covering all the ground taken from the British on the 5th. The divisions were encamped close behind, Marchand’s, Mermet’s, and Solignac’s in the edge of the wood on the near side of Pozo Bello, Ferey’s, Conroux’s, and Claparéde’s on the heights facing Fuentes de Oñoro, Reynier’s far away to the right. Nor had Wellington moved a man; but from several hours before daylight his troops had been employed in entrenching the new front that they had taken up. This was wellnigh the only occasion during the whole Peninsular War when Wellington used field-fortification on a large scale. A trench with the earth thrown outward was constructed from near Fuentes de Oñoro down to the banks of the Turon—a distance of over a mile. There was special protection for the six batteries of artillery distributed down the front, and a great abattis blocking the ravine of the Turon. The village of Villar Formoso on that stream, somewhat to the rear of the line, and that of Freneda, on the extreme right, where the 7th Division lay, had also been put in a state of defence.
Masséna, having failed when the enemy was maintaining a hastily assumed position, had no intention of attacking it when it was entrenched. In his dispatch of the 7th he writes: ‘The enemy has passed the night after the battle in fortifying the crest of the plateau which he occupies. There are five large works, much artillery is visible, and trenches for the firing line. He has put up épaulements in the ravines and behind the rocks; he has barricaded the upper part of Fuentes de Oñoro village, and Villaformosa; thus he has called to his aid all the resources of fortifications against an attack that must be made by main force.’ The idea of relieving Almeida had vanished from the Marshal’s mind—as is sufficiently marked by the fact that he ordered the great convoy at Gallegos, which had been collected for throwing into the fortress, to be distributed for the daily necessities of the army, which would otherwise have had to be fed by provisions sent forward from Ciudad Rodrigo. In his report of the battle he states that his intention is now to withdraw the garrison of Almeida, if he can manage it, and to have the place blown up. There is no prospect of dislodging the allied army by a second general engagement; but, by manœuvring, an opportunity of bringing off Brennier and his men may be secured. The primary object of the campaign is therefore abandoned; but the new secondary object of saving the garrison of Almeida may possibly be secured. In this, as we shall see, the Marshal was to succeed, owing to the culpable negligence of some of Wellington’s subordinates. The main purpose of the expedition of the Army of Portugal had been foiled; after the battle the idea of retaining Almeida, as a foothold beyond the frontier, was given up.
Fuentes de Oñoro has been called the most hazardous of all Wellington’s fights, and he has often been censured for fighting at all. Success is not always the best criterion of a general’s dispositions, and in this case the fact that Masséna was foiled is not enough to vindicate all his adversary’s arrangements. But when the case against Wellington is stated by critics like Napier, Fririon, or Pelet, it is necessary to set forth his defence, which seems an adequate one. Napier blames his old chief for accepting battle. ‘A mistaken notion of Masséna’s sufferings during the late retreat induced Wellington to undertake two operations at the same time[437], which was above his strength, and this error might have been his ruin, for Bessières, who only brought 1,500 cavalry and six guns to the battle of Fuentes Oñoro, might have brought 10,000 men and sixteen guns.’ He erred in sending out Houston’s division to Pozo Bello, and so extending his line to an unwieldy length, across ground which, beyond Fuentes, was suitable for cavalry and lacked defensive strength. By engaging the 7th and Light Divisions on this terrain he gave the enemy ‘great advantages, which Napoleon would have made fatal.’ He took up a position which would have allowed Masséna to detach some of his numerous squadrons round his right flank, by the Sabugal and Sequeiro bridges, to destroy his magazines at Guarda and Celorico, break his communication, and cut up the transport in the rear of the allied army. But, says Napier, ‘with an overwhelming cavalry on suitable ground, the Prince of Essling merely indicated, as it were, the English general’s errors, and stopped short when he should have sprung forward.’
To this it may be answered, firstly, that Wellington would not have fought, if Bessières had brought 10,000 men instead of the two cavalry brigades which actually accompanied him. He states in his dispatch to Lord Liverpool of May 1st that he is prepared to abandon the blockade of Almeida ‘if the enemy have such a superiority of force as to render the result of contest for that point doubtful.’ He also states that he is aware that Masséna might be reinforced by detachments of the troops under Bessières, which would include some of the Imperial Guard. On May 2nd[438] his intelligence through Spanish sources was sufficiently good to enable him to know that very little of the Army of the North had actually moved. If one or both of the Guard infantry divisions had marched for the frontier a week before the campaign began, it is perfectly certain that he must have heard of it, for such a force would have taken long to advance from Valladolid to Ciudad Rodrigo, or still longer from Burgos to Ciudad Rodrigo. There were secret agents at Salamanca and most of the other towns of the Douro valley, who would certainly have taken care that such a piece of information should reach the hands of Wellington. He fought because he was aware that the force opposed to him practically consisted of the Army of Portugal alone. It will be remembered that, before his short visit to the Alemtejo in April, he gave Sir Brent Spencer elaborate directions as to the position which he was to take up, in case the French should come in overwhelming force to relieve Almeida during his own absence. Spencer was directed to leave the road open, and to draw back to a defensive position covering the allied lines of communication[439]. And this no doubt is the policy which Wellington would have adopted, if Bessières had brought up the infantry of the Imperial Guard to Masséna’s help. Of this the best proof is that he actually followed this plan in September, at the time of the El Bodon fighting, when Dorsenne, Bessières’s successor, came up to the help of the Army of Portugal with a large force.
Napier’s second criticism is of more validity. The placing of the 7th Division at Pozo Bello did extend the front of the army into indefensible ground. But, as has already been pointed out, Wellington’s intention was not to fight with the 7th Division in such a position, if the enemy made a wide flanking movement with a very large force. Houston’s battalions and their cavalry supports were to guard against any attempt to turn Fuentes de Oñoro by a mere detachment, operating on a short circle. For this the force sufficed: that, though it was assailed by three infantry divisions and 3,000 cavalry, it came off with a loss of only 400 men, and assumed the new position allotted to it in due course, is surely a testimony to the fundamental soundness of Wellington’s tactics. Flanking detachments must withdraw if hopelessly outnumbered; but that is no reason for saying that such detachments must never be made. Montbrun’s cavalry sought every possible opportunity to act against the 7th and Light Divisions, but had no success save in the one case where they caught two battalions in scattered fragments evacuating a village—even there, owing to the splendid succour afforded by the British cavalry, they did not destroy the unlucky troops, but only cut up 150 of them. The moral is the old one, that cavalry unsupported is helpless against a steady force of all arms, even when it is in movement over open ground. Inferior though the British horsemen were in number, they gave an invaluable support to the infantry, which was never seriously incommoded during its retreat.
But, it is urged[440], the Light and 7th Divisions might have been in great peril if Marchand’s and Mermet’s infantry had followed Montbrun’s cavalry with all speed, and pursued the retiring British, instead of drawing up in front of Wellington’s left centre, to the south of Fuentes village. Masséna seems to contradict the possibility of this in his dispatch, where he says that ‘the 1st and 2nd Divisions of the 6th Corps followed the movement of the cavalry as much as it was possible for infantry in column to do,’ and again: ‘This superb movement [of the cavalry] was stopped; and before our infantry could arrive the enemy had the time to cover the crest of his plateau with several lines of English infantry and a formidable force of artillery[441].’ It seems probable that there was actually not time for Marchand and Mermet, coming out by narrow swampy paths from the woods of Pozo Bello[442], and forced to get into order in the open ere they could move on, to catch up Craufurd and Houston before they were safe in their appointed positions. Moreover, if they had hurried after Montbrun they would have been making a flank march across the front of Wellington’s new line, and exposing themselves to the possibility of a ruinous counter-stroke, like that delivered at Salamanca a year later.
Apparently then, on Masséna’s own showing, the advance of Montbrun was too rapid for the infantry to join him, and if so, the dismal picture drawn by Napier of the cavalry and the Light Division overwhelmed by a combination of Montbrun and Marchand, and hurled in disorder against the 1st Division in its position on the plateau, must be overdrawn. It is rash to criticize Wellington as a tactician, when (as in this case) he was moving troops under his own eye, on ground where calculations of time and pace were simple. If, from his commanding position on the edge of the plateau, he had judged that the French infantry were close enough to Montbrun to give him effective support, he certainly would not have sent out Craufurd to succour Houston, but would have allowed the latter to make the best retreat that he could towards the Turon and Freneda. But Wellington evidently judged that the 7th Division could be brought off without too much risk, and he knew that Craufurd and his veterans could be trusted even in the most delicate situations. No amount of cavalry could harm them, and if the French infantry were far enough away, the operation would be in reality much less hazardous than it looked.
When once the Light and 7th Divisions had got to their appointed places in the new line, it is hard to see that Masséna could have done anything against Wellington’s front, which was well established on a commanding ground, with a steep slope in front, and a superior artillery ranged along the crest. The Marshal himself, as we have seen, after inspecting the new position in person, thought that Fuentes village was the crucial point, and had turned three divisions against it. Undoubtedly, if he could have taken it, the position of the Allies would have been much altered for the worse. But it was a very strong post—as is sufficiently shown by the fact that 4,000 men held it against nearly double numbers for six or seven hours. Indeed, its importance may be compared with that of Hougoumont in the battle of Waterloo—it forced the attacking party to use up a disproportionate number of men against an outwork, whose occupation was absolutely necessary as a preliminary for the general attack which was contemplated. The infantry of the French left could not assail the 1st and 3rd Divisions with any reasonable prospect of success till Fuentes was carried, and, as it was never carried, the attack could not be delivered.